Exiled Page 6

  I shrug. "It's just a lot."

  "What is?"

  I laugh, a bitter, humorless sound. "Everything, Logan. My life. Just . . . everything."

  He sweeps a palm across my cheek. "Talk to me, Isabel."

  I shake my head. "Why? The last thing you need right now is to take on my stick-in-the-mud angst. You need to rest. To heal. Not to worry about me. I should be worrying about you."

  He blows out a breath. "Isabel, why don't you get this? I am going to worry about you. I am going to care about your problems. They're my problems, because I want them to be. It's what you do when you're in a relationship."

  In a relationship. My gut lurches. "I don't know how to do that. How to be . . . that."

  "Who does? You make it up as you go, babe."

  "You make it sound easy."

  "Not easy, but simple. You trust me, I trust you. We confide in each other. Depend on each other. Give freely so we're both getting what we need."

  "That sounds . . . lovely."

  He's close. One knee on the couch, near my hip. Staring down at me. Indigo eyes warm, inviting, fiery with desire. God, those eyes. That look. The expression that says he wants me, all of me, only me. Needs me. Can't go another minute without me, without tasting me, feeling me.

  I take a breath to unburden myself of the guilt, but he steals it with a kiss. Buries his palm in my hair, cupping the back of my head. Lifting me up into the kiss. Grabbing a handful of hair at the roots and tugging my head gently but firmly backward so he can plunder my mouth. Leaning farther over me.

  I can't not touch him, when he kisses me like this. Smooth my hands over his sides. Roam the curves of his shoulders, the broad plain of his back. Somehow, the towel comes loose. I find myself brushing it away, cupping, gripping, clutching, scratching his backside. Pulling him closer. Feeling him harden between us.

  He's propping himself up with one hand, searching for the hem of my dress with the other. Tugging it up, out of the way. Probing with a finger, sliding it under the gusset of my panties. Finding me wet. Hot. Ready. Touching and touching and touching, until I'm gasping against his kiss and stroking his hardness. Lifting my hips, needing him. Ready for him. Eager. Hungry.

  He's ripping at my panties, and I've got him gripped in my fist. I can feel by the tension in his belly and the way he's breathing that he's ready. Beyond ready.

  "Is . . . God, Isabel." He murmurs in my ear. His voice is low and rough, but it blasts me with remembrance.

  "Logan, wait."

  He touches his forehead to my chest for a brief moment, but then he's leaning back, upright. Cock jutting hard and ready, eyes tortured with need. "What do you need, babe?" He stares down at me. "If you're worried about me, don't. I'm perfectly healthy enough for this, I promise."

  "It's not that, Logan." I close my eyes tight, summon courage.

  "Then what?"

  I can't look at him, or I'll forget it all. The desire to obliterate everything with the heat of his kiss and the hardness of his body and the glory of feeling him orgasm in and on and all over me is too strong. If I look at him thus, naked, hard, ready, I'll forget what I need to do.

  "Isabel?" Logan's voice, prompting me.

  I suck in a breath. "We can't do this, yet. I want to, need to, but I can't."

  He shifts, plops to the cushion beside me. Drapes the towel over his lap. It tents, somewhat comically, over his massive erection. I force my eyes to focus on his face.

  He sees now. This . . . isn't good.

  "Shit." A breath, a palm passed over his face. "Spill."

  "I don't even . . . I don't know where to start."

  He eyes me. There's an anger and a hardness in his gaze. "Well, then let me venture a guess: Caleb mind-fucked you again. Got you all mixed up and feeling sorry for yourself or for him, or something. Worked whatever magic hold he has on you, got you to sleep with him again. Is that it? That's it, isn't it? You let Caleb fuck you again."

  "Logan, I--"

  "Yes--or--no, Isabel?"

  A tear slides down my cheek. Another. A whole host. "Yes." A broken sound, a shattered word, a shredded syllable.

  "Fuck." He rises, paces away, towel dropping to the floor, forgotten. Stomps angrily to his room. Pauses, head hanging, glances back at me. And then slams his fist into his bedroom door, a furious smashing blow that splinters the door. "Now I need two goddamn doors."

  "Logan, wait."

  "Just give me a few minutes, okay? I need to calm down, and I need to process this." He's not looking at me. Just standing naked in the doorway, blood on his knuckles, bandages diagonal across his head. "Don't leave. Don't drink. Just . . . wait."

  "All right."

  I try to push down the panic. The sobs. The self-loathing. But it's bubbling up and threatening to spill over. It's a very long time before Logan emerges. He's dressed, in loose track pants and a tight T-shirt, barefoot. Band-Aids on his knuckles.

  Takes a seat on the couch beside me. Breathes deeply, lets it out, and finally looks at me. I keep my eyes downcast. I don't deserve to look at him.

  "Is. Look at me."

  I shake my head. I can't. Don't. Won't.

  He touches my chin, but I resist. Pull away. Feel his fingers slide across my cheek, brushing away tears. "Isabel de la Vega. Look at me now, please."

  I have to, the way he says it. The whip and crack of command in his voice is inexorable. "What, Logan?"

  "I hate the hooks he has in you. The way he's brainwashed you."

  "It's addiction, Logan. Pure and simple."

  "Addiction can be broken."

  "He's not a substance I can merely stop buying. I can't just suffer the withdrawals, or go to rehab, or a clinic. I can't just quit him. It's not that simple. He holds my past. He is my past. I hate it, too, the way he affects me. The way I can't seem to . . . not. No matter how badly I want to, no matter how hard I try."

  "What was it this time?"

  "Jakob."

  "So what I told you, you already knew?"

  "Some of it. I confronted him about the name on my discharge papers. And he told me about Jakob. But he told it as if it were someone else. Not him. The last thing he said to me was that Jakob Kasparek does not exist anymore. That his name was Caleb. But then . . . he . . . he showed me that Jakob does exist. Almost as a separate person within him, but there, nonetheless."

  "Excuse me if that doesn't move me."

  "I'm not expecting it to." I wipe at my face. "I don't expect . . . anything from you. Except a good-bye, perhaps."

  "No, Isabel. No. Not that. Never that."

  "Why? How?"

  "Love is not so weak as that, Isabel. At least mine isn't."

  "But mine is, apparently."

  "I didn't say so," Logan says.

  "You didn't have to." I finally look at him of my own volition. It is so hard, nearly impossible, and painful. To see the anger and the pain directed at me . . . it is nearly too much to bear. "I hate myself for it, Logan. Truly, I do. The moment he left, I--I wanted to undo it."

  What I don't tell him, what I don't even allow myself to fully think, is that there is a seed of doubt buried deep within me. Now that I've seen such a secret, vulnerable, human side of you, I cannot help but wonder what else there is within you, that no one else has ever seen. I wonder. I doubt myself. I doubt everything.

  And that doubt is murderous. Treacherous.

  But I do not doubt Logan. I do not doubt my feelings for him.

  I twist to face him. Take his hands in mine. Meet his eyes. "Logan, please . . . forgive me. If you can. I don't know what this means for us, for the future, but . . . I do love you. I hope you don't doubt that."

  "It's hard not to. I want to believe that if you loved me enough, you wouldn't let anything come between us. But then I tell myself that I'm not in your shoes. I can't understand or fathom what you've been through. But what I keep coming back to is . . . this isn't the first time you've gone back to him after promising you were done. It's not even th
e second. And--he's still out there. He still considers you his property, and he'll come for you. And I--I can't help being afraid, especially now, that you might just choose him over me if it came down to it." He touches his lips to my knuckles, all ten, one at a time, slowly. "So, yes. I forgive you. Of course I do. But it will take time. I just . . . I need time. Stay here with me. Just be with me. And give me time to process it all."

  "I swear I--"

  "Don't. No promises, Isabel. You can't make any promises to me, not about Caleb."

  He's right, and I know it. I know it, and I hate it.

  I cry, and he doesn't shush me. Doesn't tell me to stop. Doesn't tell me it's okay. It's not, and we both know it. But he does hold me. He wraps his arms around me, pulls me against his chest, and lets me cry.

  Sometimes it's all there is, to cry and know it's not okay.

  FIVE

  We spend a week in an odd domestic stasis. Eating. Sleeping--together, but not sleeping together. He doesn't touch me with sexual intent and I do not attempt to instigate it either. We both know we need time between you and me and Logan and me. We go grocery shopping. We pick out a new TV and new bedside table lamps. I accompany Logan to work and act as a sort of personal assistant, out of boredom and a desire to be useful. We go to dinner at restaurants, both fancy and plain.

  He takes me shopping, and for the first time in my memory, I get to choose my own wardrobe. Bras, underwear, jeans, Tshirts, sweaters, skirts, simple cotton dresses, tennis shoes, sandals, flats, socks, tights, leggings, sweatshirts, shorts, workout gear. A whole new wardrobe of simple, attractive, comfortable clothes. He expresses his opinion on certain items, which ones he likes and which he doesn't, but leaves every decision up to me. Nothing is excessively expensive, nothing is formal or uncomfortable. They are clothes that reflect me, and it's a gift from Logan the value of which I don't think he or anyone can fathom. Just choosing my own wardrobe, it makes me feel like a real person, like a woman with her own identity. I have a style, and it is utterly and solely my own. And Logan expects nothing in return. That in itself is wonderful and amazing, to be given something freely. Always before, I felt like everything I did, everything I had came with a price, physical or emotional or psychological. Logan is content with a simple "thank you" and the happiness so evident in me.

  He takes me to a movie at a theater--a wonderful first for me, an experience I want to repeat as often as possible. It is rapturous, transporting me into a world where I do not exist. A pleasing escape.

  We take Cocoa for long meandering walks through Logan's neighborhood.

  Logan writes up a business plan for me. Comportment, he calls the business. I'm not sold on the name, but it will do for now. He guides me in constructing a business vision and a mission statement. All businesses need those two things, he says. We scout for locations; he writes up the loan contract; we squabble about both.

  We go to an outpatient doctor to have the pressure bandage removed and the area checked. It's healing nicely, we're told. Wash it gently with warm water, don't rub it too much. Leaking tears are normal, and so is a little blood in the tears. Logan refuses the prosthetics offered, both temporary and permanent. Not the way he wants to go. Not going to pretend to have an eye.

  Beth has come by a few times over the last week with patches--leather, silk, combinations of materials, plain, ornate, and everything in between. Logan sorts through them, discarding some and keeping others.

  He vanishes into the bathroom at the doctor's office and emerges wearing a patch that, to me, suits him perfectly. It is made from thick, aged brown leather, hand tooled with ornate swirling designs, the rim of the patch itself lined with brass rivets.

  He grins at me expectantly. "So? What d'you think?"

  I can't help but laugh at his eager expression. "It looks great."

  "I'm glad you like it." He glances at me. "I didn't want anything boring, but I was worried it'd be too much."

  "You make it look . . . cool."

  He scrapes his hand through his hair, tosses it dramatically. "That's me. King of cool."

  I snort. "Not anymore. Dork."

  "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were teasing me." He quirks an eyebrow at me. With the eyepatch, the effect is even more dramatic.

  We're at his SUV now; yes, he drove, carefully and with prior approval. Just leave extra stopping distance, he was told, until you get used to the change in depth perception. He climbs up and in, starts the engine while I buckle. Out into traffic, music on low.

  "You act as if I'm a stick-in-the-mud, Logan. I do have a sense of humor."

  "Not a stick-in-the-mud, babe. Just . . . serious. As if it doesn't always occur to you to laugh or crack jokes."

  I turn my gaze out the window, away from him. "Well, my life up until recently hasn't precisely lent itself to frequent jocularity."

  "'Frequent jocularity.'" He laughs. "See? That's what I mean. Who says things like that?"

  "Me?"

  He reaches out and squeezes my knee, takes my hand. "Yes, you. And I love it. You speak with concision, with eloquence and elegance. It's amazing. It's almost like you have a script writer feeding you lines, but it's just the way you talk."

  "My reeducation came from classic literature. I had to relearn how to speak, and for a long time, after I finished speech and physical therapy, the only person I spoke to was Caleb. And he is . . . formal. Always. And that is something I really never even truly understood until I met you. You're the opposite. Not in a bad way, just . . . different. You are the polar opposite to Caleb's upright, formal, precise manner. It's . . . refreshing. As if I can let loose. Let my hair down, metaphorically speaking."

  "I get it. As much as I can, at least."

  Home, then.

  Home?

  Home.

  Yes, Logan is home. Logan is freedom. Logan is where I am learning to be me. Learning who I am. What I like, what I don't like. I exercise when I want to. And when I don't want to, I don't. I eat what I like, when I like. I have a taste for unhealthy food, I discover. Pizza, nachos, potato chips. Logan has to step in, remind me that I can't eat all that stuff all the time. So I find a balance, gradually. Revert to healthy food. Organic, locally produced. Lean meats, vegetables, very little bread, very little processed food. But I splurge once in a while on yummy unhealthy food, just because I can. I exercise, but my way, at my pace, my routines. I like to run, I discover. I could never do that, before. But now I run. With Cocoa and Logan, I run. Logan got me an iPod and earbuds, and we run miles and miles and miles, not talking to each other, just running, breathing, pounding pavement endlessly. I can tune out the world when I run, focus on the music and the rhythm of my soles on the concrete, and not think about you or Logan or my addiction to you or the fact that I should have gotten my period two days ago.

  It's only two days late. I've been stressed out. Life has been chaotic and painful and impossible, and such things can throw off a woman's cycle.

  It's only two days.

  Nothing to worry about.

  *

  A week and a half late.

  I'm refusing to panic. Refusing to worry. Burying my head in the sand. Not even thinking about it. Any of it.

  If I let myself start thinking about it, I will lose all control over everything. I'm unbalanced. Tripping along the edge of a cliff, arms windmilling wildly.

  But I know, deep down, that I am going to fall.

  *

  With my period now two weeks late, I find myself ill in the morning. Nauseous. Stomach roiling. Sometimes I barely make it to the toilet. Fortunately, Logan is an early riser and follows a regular routine: up at five, eat a quick breakfast and drink a cup of coffee, then upstairs to work out. In the shower by seven, out the door to work by eight, in the office by eight thirty, usually.

  My illness--I know the term, but refuse to think it--usually happens around six thirty. While Logan is in the gym upstairs. Sometimes later, while he's in the shower. Or after he's gone. It hasn't h
appened while he's been around to see it. He'd know what it means--what it might mean. Could mean.

  He has me stay at his house, working from home. Writing out lesson ideas for my business, creating materials, my own version of the informational pamphlet Indigo clients received.

  The sickness usually passes once I've vomited, but I have to eat directly after. Light food. Fruit, an egg-white omelette, tea. No cheese; I tried, and my stomach rebelled, which is odd because I usually love cheese. I tried a sandwich for lunch one day and couldn't keep the lunch meat down. Or, no red meat. White meat was fine. But not red. No red meat, no cheese, nothing too salty or too sweet. Bland food, then. Unusual, once again, because I typically prefer rich, flavorful food.

  My moods are unpredictable, too.

  Weepy and sad one moment, for no reason. Irritable the next. Giddy and manic another.

  I steadfastly refuse to consider what it all might mean.

  *

  Logan comes home early from work one day, when I'm nearing three weeks late. Lays a garment bag across the back of the couch and just grins at me.

  I put on the dress. It's sexy, alluring, a little risque for my usual taste, but I decide I like it. Black, low cut, edgy lines, a slit up the left thigh nearly to my hip, fabric gathered tight across my torso into a bunch over my left hip.

  When I emerge wearing the gown, Logan's eyes go wide and rake over me. And, for the first time in nearly a month, there's lust in his gaze. Not that it's been absent all this while, but he hides it. Tamps it down, refuses to act on it.

  This time, he slides close to me, wraps a palm around my back, low, just above my buttocks, and tugs me against his front. "Gorgeous, Isabel."

  "Thank you," I say. Breathe a moment, feel his heart thumping, feel his fingers dimpling against my spine, edging lower to the swell of my bottom. "What's the occasion?"

  "A business associate of mine had extra tickets to an opera performance at Lincoln Center tonight. I managed to wangle a table at a fancy dinner place near it, so we've got a fun night out."

  "Opera sounds delightful. I've always wanted to attend a performance."

  Logan shrugs, makes a face. "I dunno. Opera isn't really my thing, I don't think, but you don't turn down free seats to Lincoln Center, especially not when they're prime seats. So we'll go and be fancy."